Business Class Around the World: Several Star Alliance Routings from Italy Starting at €2,975

Departing from various Italian airports, there are currently all sorts of exciting options for “Round the World” tickets in Star Alliance business class. The entire trip is limited to three stopovers – and one in Auckland, New Zealand is obligatory to get the price. One of the others stops has to happen in America, the other in Asia. Prices start around €3,000 and the possible itineraries are impossible to count.

We start off with a few example routings for this fare. Depending on your selection, you are able to buy tickets via our flight search, Expedia or directly from United Airlines.

• Eastbound:
  • Milan – Seoul – Auckland – New York – Milan for €2,975
  • Venice – Tokyo – Auckland – Chicago – Venice for €3,235
  • Milan – Hong Kong – Auckland – San Francisco – Milan for €3,089
  • Bologna – Tokyo – Auckland – Toronto – Milan for €3,172
  • Venice – Tokyo – Auckland – Mexico City – Venice for €3,153
  • Bologna – Tokyo – Auckland – San Francisco – Bologna for 3,160
• Westbound:
  • Bologna – San Francisco – Auckland – Seoul – Bologna for €3,046
  • Milan New York – Auckland – Hong Kong – Milan for €3,013
  • Venice – San Francisco – Auckland – Tokyo – Venice for €3,071
  • Milan – Austin – Auckland – Tokyo – Venice for €3,229
  • Venice – Calgary – Auckland – Seoul – Venice for €3,247

Oneway to book your own trip is our Go2 tool. We have preselected our flight search and Expedia as possible destinations, as connections there are most broadly available. If your itinerary includes a domestic flight inside the United States, you may also use United’s website. You may find connections until December 2023.

Additional Routings

There are much more possible routings than the example above. In principle, you can select one stop of each color and build your own trip around the globe. Limits are that it has to start in Italy (blue) and Auckland has to be part of the journey:

The selection gets even broader if you are willing to add a surface sector. A surface sector is not covered by your ticket, and you will be continuing your journey from a different spot than your last destination. You need to buy a separate ticket, rent a car or take a train or ship to cover the distance.

A good example is flying from Milan to Tokyo, then taking the train to Osaka and continue from there to Auckland. Possible routings including a surface sector are:

• Bologna – Seoul – Auckland – Los Angeles | New York – Milan for €2,973
• Venice – Osaka | Tokyo – Auckland – Chicago – Venice for €2,999
• Rom – Seoul – Auckland – San Francisco | Boston – Venice for €3,065
• Rom – Hong Kong – Auckland – San Francisco | Los Angeles – Bologna for €3,105
• Bologna – Tokyo – Auckland – Vancouver | Toronto – Milan for €3,173
• Milan – New York | Vancouver – Auckland – Hong Kong – Milan for €3,214

The surface sector is printed bold.

You can fly with Air New Zealand, Lufthansa, Eurowings Discover, Swiss, Singapore Airlines, Air Canada or United.

Unfortunately, Air New Zealand’s business class isn’t the most modern, and their new business class won’t be implemented by 2024. Long-haul options with Singapore Airlines are therefore more attractive.

Search & Book

The fare rules don’t give any information on how long this deal will be available. The travel period starts in February 2023 – and goes into next year. In general, the later you start searching, the better are your chances of finding availabilities. In general, you have good chances to find connections from May 2023 onwards.

You have to stay at least ten days in New Zealand to get the lowest price, your stops in America and Asia don’t have any limitations. You may actually find cheaper tickets if you stay less than 24 hours on these continents.

The most convenient way to find cheap tickets is Google Flights‘ multistop search, but even this method demands some time and patience, because you won’t be able to use the preview calendar. If you want to quicken your search a little, to searching Italy – Auckland – Italy tickets first. If you hit the €3,000 price mark, enter the out- and inbound flight date in the multistop search and try to add fitting stopovers.

We have a couple of troubleshooting advices:

• Problem: After selecting a couple of segments, the cheap price is still available, but it disappears after adding more segments.
  • Solution: Just finish assembling your journey. In some cases, the final price will be around €3,000, even if it changed throughout the search process.
• Problem: I don’t find any flights with a Star Alliance partner. Google only suggests Air France flights.
  • Solution: Set a filter for airlines, so only Star Alliance members or specific airlines like Lufthansa are displayed.
• Problem: My preferred return flight like Seoul – Munich – Paris isn’t offered, only Seoul – Munich – Frankfurt – Paris.
  • Solution: Split your last flights up into smaller segments. Don’t search for Seoul – Paris but for Seoul – Munich in leg 4 and Munich – Paris in leg 5.
• Problem: I found a fitting itinerary on Google Flights at a desirable price – but can’t book it anywhere.
  • Solution: This is trickier than the others. For some combinations, there simply aren’t OTAs who sell them. You can only call the airlines and ask to put that itinerary together and hope the price turns out to be correct. Also, Google Flights is not without failures, the site may display wrong prices
    You can double-check if that’s the case by entering your itinerary into the ITA Matrix or check Expertflyer – though the latter one requires a subscription.

Finding Availabilities with Expertflyer

You have spent hours with Google Flights and still haven’t found what you’re looking for? Then a tool named Expertflyer might be the solution. While the most useful features require a paid monthly subscription, you can test it 5 days for free.

The left sidebar is home to a button named Flight Availability. You can enter the connection you are searching for and also add a flexible search option of +/-3 days.

Example: We can’t find matching flights between Milan and Seoul. The following parameters will help to find seats in the discounted business booking class P:

After a few tries, we have found a carrier and date for our wishes: Milan – Frankfurt – Seoul on September 7, 2023:

Now you can use that information to find add more flights on Google Flights. At least you know, that your flight from Milan to Seoul has to happen on September 7 via Frankfurt.

After finding an itinerary, our Go2 tool is one of the best (and completely free) ways to find the right booking site. Learn more about the tool and browser extension here:

Go2: A Flight Search for Over 60 Airlines + Frequent Flyer Programs (Travel-Dealz Tool)

Mileage

The booking class depends on the operating airline. In general, these are the most common booking classes:

• Lufthansa, Austrian, Swiss: P
• United and Air Canada: P
• Air New Zealand: J or Z
• Singapore Airlines: D

The example in the screenshot above MXP - FRA - ICN - AKL - JFK | EWR - MXP operated by Lufthansa, Air New Zealand and United Airlines yields the following mileage:

You can calculate the mileage for your individual itinerary here:

If you already hold a Star Alliance status and are interested in your mileage including bonus, you can use this calculator:

Cover Picture: CHUTTERSNAP